Honey bees facing a crisis due to "Colony Collapse Disorder" caused by use of neonicotinoid insecticides-The implications on global agriculture

Honey is a much valued food as well as a well recognized alternate medicine for many simple ailments. While consuming Honey how many people think about the Bees that collect it meticulously, drop by drop from millions of flowers? In these days of man made imitation products that are flooding the market place why should the world be concerned about extinction of bees? After all honey is made of fructose and glucose in 38:31 ratio being the main ingredients though there are other substances like sucrose, maltose and higher sugars and making such a concoction looking and tasting like honey is not a big challenge. Of course natural honey has properties much beyond a man made sugar syrup as vouchsafed by millions who religiously consume it for its variety of real as well as imaginary qualities. Imagine how the tiny bees produce over 1.7 million tons of honey every year through the combined efforts of queen bees, thousands of drone bees and female worker bees painstakingly drop by drop through sucking out nectars from flowers and their transformation through a process of regurgitation. While honey production is a part of nature's way of providing food for the bees, these tiny creatures play a much larger role in the production of foods and other agriculture crops through cross pollination. This is where the mankind is going to be hurt if any thing adverse happens to the bees due to man's folly of doing some thing that can cause affect their population.    

Recent news that Bees are facing extinction because of the reckless pollution of environment causing them to perish in droves through many fatal afflictions does raise concerns that cannot be ignored. It was in 2006 that the phenomenon of colony collapse disorder (CCD) became a serious issue noted with alarm by many countries affecting honey production world wide. Between 2007 and 2013 more than 10 million bee colonies collapsed where most of the "worker" bees were killed leaving only the queen and some drones in their hives which cannot ensure growth of the beehive resulting in collapse of the entire colony. The importance of bees in pollination and crop fertilization is so critical that these simple insects are responsible for the production of agricultural crops worth $ 200 billion annually. Why this has happened is a million dollar question that does not have an absolute answer though factors like use of indiscriminate use of pesticides, global warming and others are being blamed. But to day there appears to be some unanimity regarding the adverse effect of a group of insecticides extensively used coming under the family of neonicotinoids or commonly called neonics which include acetamiprid, nitenpyram, nithiazine, thiacloprid, thiamethoxam and imidacloprid, the last mentioned being used widely to the extent of almost 80% in many countries. Present agricultural practice involves treating the seeds with neonics before sowing which gives protection to the plant from many insects with destructive ability and it is theorized that neonics after getting into the plant through the root system get distributed to every part of the plant including the flowers acting as a deadly poison to bees that come looking for nectar for making honey.  

It was in 1985 that neonicotinoids became a commercial success because of their lesser toxicity to birds and mammals compared to organophosphates and carbamates. Agriculturists also welcomed their arrival because of lower concentrations required to destroy the insects affecting the plants. To day virtually all commercially valued crops like corn, soybean, canola, cotton, sugar beets, apples, cherries, peaches, oranges, berries, tomatoes, potato etc are dependent on neonics for achieving high production due to their ability to stave off insect attacks in the fields. The popularity of neonics is such that it is approved in more than 120 countries across the world for a multitude of agricultural and horticultural crops. After the colony collapse disorder became a major crisis for the honey industry, world started paying more attention to the toxicity of these insecticides, especially to honey bees.Earlier premise that neonics are not toxic to bees had to be reconsidered and reinvestigated in the light of emergence of CCD to evolve a better strategy to save the bees from total extinction.

Why should the bees be vulnerable to an insecticide like neonics which enjoyed great popularity since 1985? It was found that neonics when ingested by bees had a devastating effect causing eventual death of  majority of them in a beehive. Most tragically this neurotoxic chemical impact bees' ability to forage, learn and remember their navigation route to and from food sources and naturally if these disoriented bees do not reach back home the consequences can be imagined. What choice world has under such extenuating circumstances in saving the bees from total extinction and avoid collapse of the honey industry? Logically the insecticide industry which produces neonics worth $ 2.5 billion annually will have hesitation in accepting the reality that neonics are responsible for CCD and can be expected to fiercely fight any proposal to ban them from use in agriculture. Similarly farming community which uses neonics in preference to others also may not be totally convinced about the dangers posed by them. After all neonics account for almost 25% of the insecticide market globally, reflecting its universal popularity. Though the dilemma inherent in taking a decision vis--vis neonics and their ban, Europe took the lead to ban them last year. After recent banning of neonics in Canada probably other countries in the American continent may also follow similar suit though the lobbying power of insecticide industry in a country like USA cannot be underestimated to sabotage such people friendly policies in pursuit of fiscal agenda. .           

While neonics are villains in this mass collapse of beehives, there are other mitigating factors which also must be taken into consideration. It is important to emphasize that other factors like climate change, habitat loss and disease also adversely affect pollinator health. However these factors are not entirely independent and are interrelated. It is to be conceded that chronic exposure to neonics may increase vulnerability of bees to disease. When the health of bees is to be assessed critically there is a need to draw up a comprehensive pollinator health action plan which must address all these factors and obviously scaling back the use of neonics can be a good beginning. Apart from the immediate and lethal effects on bees, neonics represent a more subtle threat to a wide range of species. The 2014 Worldwide Integrated Assessment of the Impacts of Systemic Pesticides, the most comprehensive review of the scientific literature on neonics, pointed to effects on smell and memory, reproduction, feeding behaviour, flight and ability to fight disease.. The obvious conclusion is that the world is witnessing a threat to the productivity of the natural and farming environment reminding one of the dangers posed by organophosphates or DDT in the yesteryear. In stead of protecting food production the use of neonics is "threatening the very infrastructure which enables it, imperilling the pollinators, habitat engineers and natural pest controllers at the heart of a functioning ecosystem". It is better to act now rather than regret later!.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

HUNGER AND GM FOODS-A HIDDEN AGENDA!

Genetically modified foods (GM Foods) face enormous resistance when it comes to acceptance by majority of the consumers across the world. The million dollar question that begs for an answer vis-a-vis GM food is whether this unnatural version is absolutely safe beyond a shadow of doubt. It is unfortunate that a beautiful technology that can have many advantages when it comes to production of food and their conservation is mired in enormous controversy for which geneticists, agricultural scientists, policy makers, biotechnology industry and consumer activist organizations are equally responsible. Without going into the merits and demerits of the case as propounded by the antagonists as well as the protagonists, it is suffice to say that whole world is being held to ransom by these stakeholders because of their inability to reach a consensus!

There is no doubt that GM food production technology can provide enormous variety of crops with various traits and nutritional diversity but ultimately it is the consumer who is the sole arbitrator as to whether the final product churned out by GM technology is acceptable to him or not. For example, the famous Golden Rice developed two decades ago, through GMO, was supposed to be rich in Pro-vitamin A, a nutrient deficient in natural rice but why this has not become an instant success? While suspect safety may be one reason the main factor is the appearance of the cooked rice which is yellow, contrary to the white color consumer is used to. Thus any thing and every thing nutritionally better does not click in the market due to consumer inhibition.

According to figures put out by pro-GMO lobby there are 16 million farmers around the world using GM technology for a variety of crops including food crops, most widespread being soybean and maize. The area under cultivation reached a significant figure last year and over 170 million hectares are planted with GMO seeds. This is a trend which indicates that as far as the farmers are concerned GMO crops are more profitable for them compared to conventional agriculture. Should this be a real reflection of increased yield from GMO technology? Need not be as the increased profitability can be due to several factors such as lesser wastage due to vectors, lesser use of fertilizers, more efficient pesticide use etc. 

One of the major constraints for wide scale use of GM technology is its limitation vis-a-vis seed generation locally making the farmer eternally dependent on the commercial seed producers who have practically the monopoly in this business. The fear factor is that once the GMO technology is regularly used the seed producer can hold the farmer to ransom by continuously hiking the price frequently as the farmers have no alternate option to fall back on. This situation can be obviated to some extent if government agencies buy the rights to generate foundation seed technology and produce them in captive facilities to supply to the farmers at reasonable prices. This does not seem to be happening as the monopoly suppliers are not willing to part with the technology as their profitability comes from royalty from seed supplies. 

Coming to the safety aspects, one of the pioneers of GM technology recently cited the fact that more than 70-80% of corn and soybean produced in the US are GMO versions and almost 80% of food products in American market contain one or more of GMO ingredients. Obviously he must be referring to the absence of any major health hazards to the American population during the lat two decades by consuming GMO foods in such large quantities day in and day out. Of course this is a solid point worth keeping in mind while condemning GMO foods outright. Whether the ill effects of consuming GMO foods will manifest over long years and after multi generation elapse, one does not have the wherewithal to know now! 

It is interesting that there is a powerful movement world over to let the consumer know that he is eating GMO foods through transparent label declaration which the GMO food industry is desperately resisting. Why? If the GMO food is absolutely safe what is the harm in declaring its presence in the food marketed by the industry? This is giving rise to the suspicion that GMO food industry has some information raising doubts about the safety of GMO foods which they are suppressing fearing adverse impact on their business! The claim that there are 2000 scientific publications bringing out the safety of GMO foods cannot be the basis for blanket clearance of these products as even a single publication based on sound scientific study raising doubts about the safety cannot be brushed away as irrelevant. To brand all those opposing GMO foods as criminals does not speak well about the attitude of those relentlessly pushing GMO food technology!

Recent claim that world hunger problem can be solved if GMO technology is deployed world over is obviously an over simplification of the case. One may ask whether the hunger problem faced in some continents like Africa, Asia and South America is really due to food shortage? Obviously it is not. The low purchasing power among two billion people across the three continents does not give them adequate access to the food currently produced and added to this large scale diversion of food crops for animal feeds and renewable energy sources like alcohol is making the food dynamics some what skewed. To assume that increased production through GMO technology will rectify this situation in 2050 when population is estimated to touch the 9 billion mark, may be far fetched.    

     

V.H.POTTY

http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

COMPLEXITY OF FOOD PRODUCTION-CONFUSING SCENARIO

World seemed to be divided regarding the current agricultural practices that account for the production of all foods. While the labor intensive traditional cultivation is more or less replaced by input intensive mechanized operations, the organic food sector presents a totally different picture. Added to this some of the people movements like the local foods, whole foods, farmers markets etc have added further confusion to the already complex food production system. The yearning for change is driven by concerns regarding the safety of foods raised by modern technologies involving intensive use of fertilizers, insecticides, pesticides, weedicides, growth regulators, etc which invariably leave residues on the foods and gain access to the stomach of humans capable of causing health damage, short as well as long term. Two of the most controversial changes that continue to influence to day's agriculture are the growing organic food production and genetically modified food production.

Mainstream agricultural practices themselves have changed beyond recognition with mono culture, no-til and minimum-till operations becoming industry standards. The great green revolution that saw quantum jump in food production in nineteen sixties and seventies is characterized by mono culture cultivation without any crop rotation and intensive use of chemical fertilizers and toxic crop protectants. Decades of such practices literally destroyed the soil health in many countries and crop yields are plateauing or actually declining raising concerns all around. This is happening at a juncture when the need of the hour is increasing the production rate at least to keep in tune with the population growth. It is any body's guess as to how many years it will take to rehabilitate the degraded soil to reclaim its original production potential.

Organic way of cultivation and crop rotation only can help if such an objective is to be achieved. There is always the question whether organic cultivation system can really help to increase food production to the extent needed to meet future world requirement. There is no consensus on this issue with protagonists and antagonists ranged against each other. GM foods which are touted as an answer to global food problem cannot achieve increased productivity though losses can be reduced in the field through use of lesser pesticides. Of course the safety of GM foods is a critical issue with sharp divergence of views among scientists and consumers and it is difficult to imagine how consumers can be forced to consume foods not acceptable to them. It is another matter that some countries are hiding the extensive use of GM foods by the processing industry which is unethical and undemocratic.

If organic food production system is as beautiful and lucrative as being claimed, the million dollar question that begs an answer is why more farmers are not jumping into the organic food wagon? It is supposed to be easy besides being remunerative to practice. One of the reasons could be lack of awareness about organic food cultivation among the vast majority of farmers. Similarly the specialized input material sourcing is highly cumbersome and uncertain posing tremendous logistical difficulties. Compost and cover crops are the two main nutrient sources of organic growers. The cost of buying compost and using in the farms can be significantly higher than chemical fertilizers. Similarly if the farms are not located near a city or a livestock operation, compost may not be an option.

Green manure, cover crops that fix nitrogen, though wonderful, may take time during the year to grow and there are costs associated with buying and planting the seed. More important and crucial is training of the farmers on efficient organic farming techniques which calls for an infrastructure that is just not available widely. Under these circumstances one can only expect highly motivated farmers to take the risk of entering the organic food movement.These factors may probably be the reason why GM food lobby is able to make considerable inroads into the farming sector with its astronomical resources for brain washing and seduction. There was a time when organic farms were small in number and size but to day there are large farms owning thousands of hectares of land devoted to organic food production. Probably realizing the inevitability of moving towards a scenario where present "toxic" farm production system will have to yield to newer system of organic food production, it is a question of time before the whole world embraces this safer regime.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

THE CO2-PROTEIN CONNECTION-IMPACT ON FOOD CROPS

The global climate change studies and predictions invariably focus on increased levels of CO2 in the environment and rise in temperature, both having far reaching impact on the life in this planet. The controversial report of the Inter country Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), though has some major errors in its treatise, still graphically illustrates the consequences of emissions of CO2 and other green house gases, if not controlled effectively. The Copenhagen Summit on climate change last year, is supposed to have addressed this critical issue for arriving at a possible global commitment for cutting down emissions dramatically in the coming years. It is another matter that the Summit ended up with achieving no concrete results. Only redeeming feature of the Summit was the voluntary commitments made by China and India in reducing emissions voluntarily by 40% and 25% by 2020 while the affluent nations, spewing out several times more green house gases, prevaricated on the issue reluctant to make any significant sacrifice on this issue.

One of the indirect consequences of increased concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, not comprehended by the climatologists, is the adverse impact it can have on quality and quantum of agricultural production in future. All living beings need proteins to grow and sustain and if CO2 has any adverse influence on protein production by the plants as being suspected, it can have catastrophic consequences on the future of this planet. Reduced food grain production can lead to increased starvation while depleted proteins in the food grains like wheat will tell upon the health of the population. One of the most startling findings coming out of the laboratories of scientists is that with increased levels of CO2, protein content could come down as much as 11%. As per the recorded documents, between 1800 and 2000 the CO2 levels in the atmosphere increased by 39% and by the end of this century it may further increase by 40-120% if remedial measures are not adopted immediately.

It has been demonstrated conclusively that in Mustard and Wheat plants, rising CO2 concentrations tend to decrease protein levels in the grains. Plants absorb nitrites applied as fertilizing agent through the root system to be converted into organic nitrogenous compounds of vital biochemical importance such as proteins. This process is retarded in presence of higher levels of CO2 and needs to be compensated by increased fertilization through supply of more of nitrites externally. Excess levels of nitrites, on the other hand can cause toxicity to the plants due to accumulation of Ammonia. Agricultural management will have to change to fine tune fertilizer application to keep up with CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.

Elevated CO2 levels in the atmosphere are known to decrease the rate of photorespiration that enables the plant to operate the naturally occurring chemical process responsible for combining oxygen with carbohydrates for generating energy for its growth and sustenance. Though a net reduction in photorespiration does contribute to increased photosynthesis, the effect does not last with the tapering of this activity at higher levels of CO2, adversely affecting the plant growth and productivity.

What will be consequences of such a change in the form of protein depletion in the food that is consumed by humans as well as the damaging vectors like insects and pests? Human beings may tend to eat more to derive the minimum protein needs as per the current nutrition norms and same applies to insects and pests also, the consequence of which will be the necessity to produce more foods in future. Already there are dire predictions that food production levels would fall well below the minimum needs of a growing population by 2050 with the attendant consequences of mass starvation in some parts of the world. Probably uncontrolled CO2 emission will aggravate this situation further. Increased acidity of ocean water because of higher sinking of CO2, consequent to rising levels of this gas in the atmosphere caused by human activity, is predicted to bring about destructive changes amongst marine life and availability of sea foods is likely to become critical due to this phenomenon. It is unfortunate that brunt of this catastrophe will have to be borne by the poor people of Africa, Asia and South America.

V.H.POTTY

http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com